Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting | Bakewell Junction

Today I’d like to share a Red Velvet Cake with you.  My husband’s co-worker loves Red Velvet Cake and nudged my husband to get me to make one.  I searched the internet and most cake recipes looked about the same except for the ones that used beets to color the cake instead of food coloring but I didn’t see many of those.  Some had a little more of this or that but this one had coffee in the ingredients which I found interesting and so that cinched it.

Red Velvet Cake has a little cocoa in it but it can’t be considered a chocolate cake.  It certainly has a great look to it with the vivid coloring. Now I must confess, I don’t like Red Velvet Cake.  I know that sounds crazy but…if I want chocolate then I really want chocolate and I have so many recipes that are really chocolatey to turn to, many that I’ve shared with you.  Plus I don’t like the idea of so much food coloring in a cake.  I use food coloring in cookies and frosting but it just bothers me to put it in a cake, especially so much of it.

How do I know that this cake is good?  Well, the frosting is so good you could sit there with a bowl of it and eat it until it’s gone.  My husband and all his co-workers deemed it fantastic.  One co-worker ate a quarter of the cake for two days in a row – that’s half the cake!  The cake coloring makes a great impression too.  As a baker, I liked that the cake baked to an even height and I didn’t have to cut the top to even it out before frosting.

Enjoy!

Red Velvet Cake

Yield:  12 servings                  Cook Time:  40 minutes

Batter:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup oil (I used olive oil)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
• 1 – 2 ounces red liquid food coloring (I used about 1 1/2 ounces)
• 1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
• 1/2 cup prepared hot coffee

Frosting:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
• 8 ounces (1 package) cream cheese, room temperature
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Step 1:  For the batter:  Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt in a medium bowl.  In a large mixing bowl, beat together sugar and oil.  Add eggs, buttermilk, vanilla and food coloring and beat until combined.  Be careful with the batter, as the added food coloring will stain.  Add coffee and vinegar and mix until combined.

Step 2:  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients in small batches.  Mix until combined after each addition.  The batter will be pretty thin but this is okay.  Pour an even amount of batter into two 9 inch cake pans that have been sprayed with cooking spray and coated with flour.

Step 3:  Adjust the oven rack to the middle of the oven and preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Place the pans on the middle rack and bake for 30 to 40 minutes.  Check the cakes with a toothpick; when it comes out clean, the cake is done.  I believe my oven runs a little cool, so I checked the cakes at 30 minutes and they were nowhere near ready so I rotated them and put the right one on the left and vice versa.  I checked them again at 35 and 40 minutes.  One cake was done at 40 minutes and the other needed another 2 minutes (this one must have had a smidgen more batter).

Step 4:  Let the cakes cool 15 to 20 minutes.  Remove the cakes from the pans and let them cool completely on cooling racks.

Step 5:  For the frosting:  While the cakes cool, add butter and cream cheese to a large mixing bowl.  Beat 4 to 5 minutes.  I beat them on high using a hand-held mixer.  Beat in vanilla extract.  Mix in the powdered sugar at a lower speed (this prevents having powdered sugar everywhere).

Step 6:  Assembly:  Place the completely cooled bottom layer of the cake on a serving plate.  Frost the top of the cake with a spatula.  Carefully place the completely cooled top layer of the cake on top of the frosted layer.  Frost the top of the cake and then frost the sides.

Storing:  Store in a sealed plastic container for a few days.

Enjoy!!!

Cake recipe from Divas Can Cook, The Best Red Velvet Cake recipe.
Frosting recipe from guest author Garrett McCord on Simply Recipes, Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting recipe.

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Irish Soda Bread 1

Saint Patrick’s day is in a few days and although I’m not Irish I have a penchant for Irish Soda Bread.  During my undergraduate years I worked at a sales rep company and while that information is unimportant, what is important is that I had a co-worker whose last name was Sullivan and his mother made tons of Irish Soda Bread and sent it to him.  Since he couldn’t eat it all, he brought most of them to us at work.  I’ve never had Irish Soda Bread that was as good or with the same texture.  It’s hard to explain because the bread was sweeter than any other recipe I’ve had and it wasn’t as dry or as brown.  It was sort of like a scone.  Unfortunately I never asked for the recipe and I’ve been looking for something similar since but I’ve never found it.

This recipe is quite tasty and moist; sort of like a quick bread.  I’ve modified the original recipe to my tastes.  I normally send a couple of loaves to a friend that I don’t get to see too often and she loves it.  She freezes it so she can have some whenever she likes.  I hope you enjoy this recipe too.

After stirring together the dry ingredients and cutting in the butter and mixing very thoroughly with your hands until it gets grainy, the mixture looks like this.

After mixing is competed.

Ready for the oven.

Hot out of the oven.  Ready, set, eat.

Irish Soda Bread

Yield:  2 or 3 loaves                Cook Time:  50 – 60 minutes

Ingredients

• 5 cups sifted all-purpose unbleached flour
• 2 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 pound (1 stick) butter
• 1 1/4 cups raisins, soaked in water for 15 to 20 minutes and drained
• 2 1/2 cups buttermilk or substitute 2 ½ tablespoons lemon juice to 2 ½ cups milk, stir and wait 10 to 15 minutes
• 2 large eggs, slightly beaten

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Generously butter 2 9 x 5 inch pans or 3 8 x 4 inch pans.  Alternatively you can use cooking spray.

Stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.  Cut in the butter with a pastry blender at first and then mix very thoroughly with your hands until it gets grainy.  Stir in raisins.

Add the buttermilk and egg to the flour mixture.  Stir until well moistened.  Pour mixture into 2 or 3 loaf pans.

Bake for to 50 – 60 minutes.  Test with a toothpick for doneness.  Cool in the pans for 3 to 5 minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!!!

Recipe adapted from www.foodnetwork.com, courtesy of Brother Rick Curry, The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking, HaperPerennial, 1995.